


Electric Dreams

by Skullharvester



Series: Current WIPs [9]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26904505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skullharvester/pseuds/Skullharvester
Summary: After the good guys defeat and capture an unusual new Badnik as their prisoner, Tails interrogates the robot while it's in a pacified state.(11/3/2020: Thank you to everyone who's been reading so far!  New chapter coming soon!)
Series: Current WIPs [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2120226
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning for a long time to write a story about this character I've had stuck in my head after getting back into Sonic the Hedgehog in recent times. (I have a lot to catch up on!) I love the Badniks, and the idea of exploring them more is a lot of fun for me.
> 
> I appreciate your readership for this story! Every reader inspires me!
> 
> Enjoy and have fun! If you liked this tale, please drop me a kudos and/or a comment to let me know if you'd like to see more! Thank you, and have a wonderful night!

Tails watched the machine on the other side of the observation glass for signs of sentient life. Sparks flew from the seam in the Badnik’s neck when it craned its head in the fox’s direction. The light in its red visor flickered as it tried to look back at him. Another light below it, one that had the appearance of a row of grinning teeth, that indicated speech whenever it flashed came on intermittently shortly after, but no sound other than that of heavily damaged parts malfunctioning followed.

“Can you hear me?” the fox asked, leaning towards the microphone on his end of the glass.

The machine made a noise like a pained groan in the fleeting moment its vocalizer worked. It tried again, but the result was the same. It turned its head back away, staring up at the ceiling helplessly. 

For all Tails knew, the robot’s systems were overwhelmed just by trying to boot back up in its physical state. Currently, it was just a dome-shaped head on a torso laying on a slab, with its limbs hanging by wires either on the floor or separate tables with trays of tools on them. Some of its wires were connected to outlets to give it direct power where its own power supply was too weak. Tails imagined that if he woke up like that, he’d be shocked, too.

After a time, the robot looked back at Tails again, seemingly a little more awake now. “Y-Yes,” it replied with a static-laced artificial and baritone voice.

“What’s your designation, and why did Dr. Eggman send only you to attack us?” The small fox’s twin tails brushed past each other anxiously in wait of an answer, and he stared at the sparking machine with wide-eyed anticipation.

The row of “teeth” on the robot dimmed and brightened several times while his drive discs storing his hazy memories spun internally. “I don’t believe he did. I believe I came here on my own accord.” 

He, the robot, remembered he was asked for a name. “I am the first prototype of the SWATbot Mk III line, but you can just call me…” 

His drives hummed again. 

“Marky.” Yes, that’s what his data banks indicated he should be called for short, though he could not remember who gave him that name.

Tails thought this model of Badnik looked familiar, but it was odd to think that Dr. Eggman would bring back such an outdated concept, especially since the Egg SWAT long since replaced the old SWATbot models. 

Then, he remembered how often the doctor kept maintaining and reworking what was still his most prized creation to this day: Metal Sonic. For all his genius, Dr. Eggman was more sentimental than pragmatic at times, and being a narcissist, he loved his own classics.

Before Tails could ask anything more of the robot, it posed an unexpected question to him first: “Did you know that today is my birthday?”

The diminutive yellow fox blinked. A Badnik that was aware of its own activation date? Did Eggman even still make models with that level of autonomy after apparently swearing off such a thing long ago?

“Marky” continued, “Not that I remember existing before today.” While he spoke, his scattered limbs gesticulated in a casual way that made Tails uncomfortable because the robot was very much shaped like a person, making it hard to mentally separate the expectations of what an organic being could and could not do versus what a mechanical one could. “But two of my brethren have told me that I have been in existence for at least three years now.”

The robot’s head lowered, the lights on its cold metal face plate dimming, and to Tails, its limited expression mimicked sadness so well that he couldn’t help but feel some sympathy. “Happy birthday,” the fox said, finding the situation surreal, like it was a dream he might suddenly wake up from at any moment.

“Thank you,” replied Marky in his well-spoken voice. While it was more than obvious that he was constructed for combat, he spoke more like a diplomat. Though sometimes Dr. Eggman’s robots didn’t turn out quite like he originally planned for them, this seemed like an intentional feature, but why?

Tails brought the conversation back on track, noting that the Badnik was very distracted, perhaps troubled by its own musings, if that were possible. “Why is Eggman creating more SWATbots closer to the original ones?”

Marky didn’t hesitate to answer. “Protection.”

“For himself?”

“For Eggmanland.”

“Eggmanland?”

Nodding mechanically, Marky explained further. “It is my creator’s dream to conquer all of Mobius and bring about a new age. An age of robots, and his Eggman Empire. The capital from which he will reign will be dubbed Eggmanland, and it will be glorious. 

“However, he expects rebellion to be an inevitability, and that is where robots like me come in. Someone must uphold the law and see to it that all citizens are compliant. To ensure minimal property damage, nominal negotiation measures for compliance is essential, but non-compliance will be met with extreme force.”

Ah. It was to do with the “world conquering” thing. That wasn’t new information, but the specific details the robot had to offer were interesting. What exactly did “nominal negotiation measures” entail? A demand and a warning shot before being met with much greater hostility? 

Tails shuddered to picture a world filled with enforcers like that. Mobius, as he knew it, was a mostly peaceful place. It wasn’t perfect – nothing was, but the world Dr. Eggman wanted to turn it into sounded horrific and inhospitable.

“I thought the E-Series might be his enforcers,” Tails pointed out when the thought crossed his mind.

“At one point, yes, but history has started to show that they are prone to gross disloyalty. I understand that one of my brothers is now an ally of yours, correct? That is what my database tells me,” said the damaged machine. 

His fingers twisted in a jerky motion as a result of the power connectivity issues it was facing. Trying to effectively think while also trying to articulate with motion proved to cause problems. “Correction: It seems that there are multiple traitors among you.”

He was probably talking about Omega and Gemerl in particular. “Well, your database isn’t wrong,” Tails confessed, running his gloved fingers along the buttons of the terminal in front of him and frowning slightly.

“Unfortunate, but hopefully they can be brought back into the fold; back to the Empire, where they belong. I have no interest in fighting my own brethren, if it can be helped,” Marky responded to the confirmation.

Tails almost chuckled. Fighting? He wasn’t going to be doing _that_ anytime soon with anyone _period_. He was a mess of pieces in an observation room and was lucky that he could even talk and think at the very least. Tails could hardly say he was surprised; many of Eggman’s robots had this mentality of putting the cart before the horse when it came to their objectives.

“Or you could join them, you know. That’s an option. I could repair you myself, and –”

Before Tails could even finish his offer, Marky had started laughing in a way that was too organic. The fox felt crestfallen, as it came across as somewhat mocking to him.

“I would sooner you deactivate me for good,” the Badnik said as his voice took on a more serious tone.

Tails didn’t know how to feel about the potential of that outcome. Like Marky’s reluctance to quarrel with his own kind, the young fox had no desire to destroy a Badnik that had some ounce of sentience contained in its personality chip, or wherever such personhood was stored; that was something he had yet to fully figure out even with their current mechanical allies. It was hard to even say where organics kept such a thing.

The fox decided he would avoid discussing that topic for now – the topic of deactivating the SWATbot. “You never told me why you decided to attack us. If your objective is to protect Eggman’s property, shouldn’t you be at his base? It seems like a strange move to come all the way out to our hideout just to pick a fight solo.”

A surge of light rippled across the visor-like eye of the machine, like it was performing a visual scan. “You have something here, and that troubles me for some reason.”

“And what is it you’re looking for, exactly?” asked Tails.

There was a brief pause, and then, “I cannot say, but I will know it when I sense it.”

What did that mean?

“It’s not here, but I’m sure it is close,” added Marky when his examination of the general area was complete. That is, if he even could do a proper scan in the state he was in now. “I detected it when I first arrived here, and I am confident that it hasn’t moved.”

Creepy. Oh well, thought Tails. He saw that smoke was starting to rise from some of the seams in the robot’s frame, and that told him he should probably end the interrogation for now, lest Marky fry out his own processor with exertion. If that happened, they couldn’t gather more information from him, and he wanted Sonic himself to ask a few questions.

“I think you should go back into your hibernation mode for at least a couple of hours. You can leave your sensors on if you don’t trust me, but I promise that I won’t mess with you while you’re recharging,” said Tails. “Thanks for cooperating, by the way. I didn’t expect you to be so… polite.”

“It is merely an accident of my design, I assure you,” replied the robot, sounding disappointed with himself despite Tails’ words being a compliment. Without another word, it seemed like all the life had faded from the Badnik, though he wasn’t dead; he was just dormant, back to looking like an unawaken golem.

Tails turned around to shut the light off, but he cast one final, wary glance back at the machine. Did he pity it for being an intelligent being under the domination of a creator that no doubt had no love for it, or was it a creature to be deeply fearful of? He wasn’t sure just yet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's come to read this story! I hope you're enjoying it, and have a great day!

When the SWATbot had awoken… 

Actually, he wasn’t awake. He couldn’t be. If he were, he’d still be in pieces in an observational room at the home of his creator’s most hated enemies, but in this dream or memory he found himself playing out, he was whole and new. 

He was also back in Dr. Eggman’s laboratory, and it had only been moments ago that he first climbed down from the worktable he was created upon.

The part of his functionality geared towards investigation compelled him to be curious about his unfamiliar surroundings. He approached several other projects that were scattered around him and scanned them with his sensors to make notes in his data banks of their purpose and relevance. 

His intrigue lead him deeper into other parts of the facility, to other rooms that contained more inert machines. One case in particular caught his attention. There was a tall glass cylinder at the back of the sector he’d wandered off to, yet it only contained a small figure inside that couldn’t have been much taller than about three feet.

He placed his palm upon the glass as he marveled at the suspended robot. It looked like an animal that his database had told him to be wary of, but for what reason, he wasn’t sure. 

Something about this mechanical member of the species, however, did not inspire a sense of hatred. Fear, perhaps, but what he felt was more along the lines of awe. The terrible kind of awe that one got when one was face-to-face with something greater than themselves.

The being had a distinctly sinister aura, even while in stasis. Its pitch black eyes were molded into an expression of perpetual burning anger, the spikes on the back of its head curled like thorns, its fingers were like sharp talons, and even the indent of the turbine at the center of its chest was like a hole where a heart should be. 

For such a small machine that had so much potential to be adorable in some ways, it was instead more unnerving and appeared more like a rabid wild animal that was only sleeping.

“Mk. III, ah… Marky, get away from that!” the little rounded robot that the SWATbot had come to know as Orbot exclaimed as he and his boxier companion, Cubot, came hovering in.

It seemed like these two even more diminutive robots that had awakened him were now finished with the trivial task their shared creator had called upon them to do on short notice, and now they had more time to tutor him in his new role as their maker’s peacekeeper. Though Marky was glad to see them again, their timing was unfortunate.

Marky gave a slight bow of his head in acknowledgment to the two, perplexed by why they were so panicked. “Who is this?” he asked while rapping a knuckle against the thick glass – an action that startled the two older robots even further.

“That’s Metal Sonic,” answered Cubot. “He’s the boss’s favorite, but I don’t see why. He’s really scary, and he’s not much of a talker.” He placed his hands on his rectangular hips, recalling several offenses from past encounters with the mysterious being in question. “He’s pretty mean, actually.”

“And dangerous,” Orbot emphasized, brushing past Cubot and raising his index finger as a sign of caution.

Cubot nodded. “That, too.”

“Dr. Eggman created him with the hope of using the real Sonic’s own strengths against him, plus some added perks that could only be afforded to a robot,” Orbot explained in greater detail. “Of course, though he’s gotten close, he hasn’t defeated the hedgehog yet. The boss has been working out Metal’s flaws over the years.”

“Right now, the boss is workin’ on his newest upgrades,” interjected Cubot. “That’s why he’s in the big jar, and not out here with us.”

“And I’m glad for that,” said Orbot, placing a palm on his spherical forehead wearily.

The SWATbot turned back to the case, watching its inanimate inhabitant with keener interest. “What’s being altered, exactly? Do either of you know?” Marky didn’t really have an actual chin or a jaw necessarily, but he rubbed the area where a chin should be with a finger thoughtfully.

“Well, he, uhm…” Orbot moved his hand behind his head, making an uncomfortable expression.

“He got rebellious again,” Cubot chimed in, frowning. He shrugged his shoulders ignorantly at Orbot when his red-and-black companion gave him an irritable glare for saying too much.

“So, he is being punished?” asked Marky.

“No, just…” Orbot sighed. “Corrected is the better term. For his own good.” The red-and-black Badnik seemed weighed down by a guilty conscience when he eyed the SWATbot in a preoccupied manner. “Some of the doctor’s creations are like that, unfortunately. It never leads anywhere good, but sometimes it is a side-effect of AI that is designed to learn from new information and experiences.”

This gave the SWATbot pause. “My AI is adaptive. That won’t happen to me, will it?”

Orbot didn’t answer at first, but eventually Cubot did after some time. “I wouldn’t worry about it. You’ll probably be fine.” The yellow-and-black machine didn’t sound confident, but he was trying to be.

Marky found his gaze lingering upon the control mechanism for the case, only breaking away after a while to stare once again at its prisoner. He wondered if this Metal Sonic wanted to be changed, or if he would truly be better off.

“We should take you back to Dr. Eggman,” Orbot spoke up, taking notice of how lost in thought the SWATbot was and becoming worried by where his mind might be wandering off to. 

It was clear that curiosity would be an issue with this one. Orbot knew he should have advised the doctor against designing a criminal investigation system for this new take on the SWATbot model. Previous SWATbots weren’t very bright, and that was to assist with keeping their loyalty. 

If their scanners that could sense through most types of walls were damaged, an object or a person could go behind an obstruction and virtually disappear from existence as far as they were aware. They had no true sense of object permanence, but Marky did. They had little capacity for creative thinking, yet Marky was capable of fabricating complex ideas from nothing like an organic brain could.

In Orbot’s paranoid mind, which shared a lot of the same base coding for complicated emotions, that was a formula for disaster. Unfortunately, Dr. Eggman, being egotistical and overconfident due to his impressive intellect, saw no reason why he couldn’t effectively stamp out any issues that presented themselves throughout the testing stages. What was one wayward machine against his entire horde of other creations, after all?

“Very well,” agreed Marky finally, though he was clearly not yet ready to go. He still had so much exploring to do, but he expected that he might have more time to snoop around when the first patrol cycle came up in his internal schedule. “Perhaps he can clarify a few questions I have about my primary objective.”

“Let me guess,” Cubot began to say. “Priority One: Hedgehog?”

“How did you know?”

Cubot waved a hand for Marky to follow them as Orbot hovered towards the exit. “I figured he still left it in. All the old models had that, too.”

Light slowly danced between the “teeth” in his artificial grin, portraying befuddlement. “It’s very… vague.”

“It’ll make more sense when you have your first run-in with Sonic,” the boxy robot assured ominously, hovering after Orbot at a pace that Marky could hardly keep up with without having to sprint. Cubot and Orbot were tiny, but quicker thanks to their lesser mass. “Instinct kicks in,” he added.

Instinct was the word that Marky repeated back in his head. He was afraid to find out what his instincts were, exactly.


	3. Chapter 3

Outside of their home, Tails circled around the sleek motorcycle that was parked on the grass. Sonic the Hedgehog kept an eye on the fox from underneath the shade of a nearby tree. 

Even though that SWATbot was out of commission and stuck in the observation room Tails built as a newer part of his ever-expanding tinkering workshop, Sonic didn’t want to take any chances. Tails was lucky that his interrogation went so smoothly; neither of them had any idea what that new model was capable of.

At least now, Tails was just poking at a vehicle. That wasn’t so dangerous, unless it were to tip over on the fox or something. Sonic was fast enough to dash over and catch it in time if that did occur. There was no need to move out from under the tree; the blue hedgehog could just continue to relax and enjoy the cool breeze of the early afternoon.

The motorcycle’s imposingly colored red-and-black coat and blue-tinted chrome glistened in the sunlight, and the headlights sparkled without it even being turned on. If it wasn’t brand new, it was recently rebuilt, and the aesthetic reminded Tails very much of a police officer’s patrol vehicle. 

Of course, this one made an allegiance with the Eggman Empire clear in its gold-colored trim; there were a few decals on the chassis that bore that sinister smiling emblem resembling the evil doctor behind it all.

Tails wanted to start the thing up, but there was only one issue: There were no keys to be found, nor was he even sure where one might be inserted, either. Aside from the standard gauges typically found on a motorcycle’s dashboard, there were other meters, buttons, and screens; the purpose of which were still a mystery that he wouldn’t be able to solve until he got the vehicle powered on.

He spotted a panel below the dashboard, then crawled over the bike’s seat and popped the hatch open to look inside. It was possible that he could interface with the motorcycle and force the engine on if he used one of the ports there to –

A loud thrum erupted from the engine as it came to life on its own. Tails had to double check that his hand wasn’t turning the acceleration handle, but he hadn’t even gone near it at all.

_VROOM… VROOM…_ the vehicle hissed again, like a cornered animal giving a warning to back off.

“Okay, okay, Tails. I know you’re excited to play with that new toy, but chill it with all the noise!” laughed Sonic, having no idea how his friend finally got the bike running.

Tails shot him a worried look. “I’m not doing it, Sonic.”

Then, all on its own, the motorcycle reared up like a bucking horse, and sent Tails flying off its back with an alarmed scream coming from the poor fox.

“Little buddy, are you okay!?” gasped Sonic. His first instinct was to rush to Tails’ side to help him up, but before he could reach the fox, the motorcycle charged into his side with an ear-splitting shriek from its wheels.

For a moment, everything went white as the hedgehog felt his own body flip into the air. He thought he’d heard Tails cry out his name, but his senses were so scrambled by the sudden impact and rush of pain in his ribs and hip. The wind had been knocked from his chest, and he’d almost forgotten how to breathe. Once he remembered, he inhaled deeply, and that was just enough to make the scenery come back into view again, just in time for him to land on his feet.

Sonic was now face-to-face with the animate motorcycle, and he imagined that its bright headlights were staring him down with contempt. It “growled” at him again with its engine, giving him one final chance to retreat with his short blue tail between his legs, but Sonic wasn’t the type who ever backed down from a challenge – for better or for worse.

Grass peeled away, leaving only streaks of mud behind, when the vehicle accelerated towards him again, faster than before. That only made the hedgehog smirk. 

When would Badniks ever learn that he was the master of speed, and that there was hardly a point in them even trying to compete? The bike only had beginner’s luck the first time, having caught him off guard.

Sonic ran circles around the riderless machine in the yard, paying close attention to how it reacted to his every hard-to-follow move. Tails wasn’t thrilled about the yard being torn to shreds to accomplish this, but he was watching, too. 

The hedgehog wondered if Tails was thinking the same thing he was: The AI was like that of a Moto Bug, one of Eggman’s earliest inventions. In fact, even the coloration gave that impression.

If this bike really was modeled after the Moto Bugs, they had little to worry about. They were one of the simplest Badniks in Dr. Eggman’s arsenal, and Sonic had defeated more of those than he could count. The hedgehog chuckled confidently in his head. It was just an over-sized Moto Bug!

One that apparently had guns mounted to the front just above the headlights, which he hadn’t seen until they started firing at him. The shots came from tiny barrels, but were powerful enough to fell the tree Sonic was lounging under earlier when the rounds cut through them, making a beeline for the hedgehog.

Tails let out a horrified gasp as he scrambled on his belly towards his toolbox, staying low to avoid being seen by the rampaging Moto-Cycle or shot by a stray bullet. He dipped a gloved hand into the opening of the box and fished around blindly for a specific tool. 

He didn’t dare lift his head up, knowing that could be the last risk he’d ever take.

_Sonic, just keep it distracted for a little while longer_ , he pleaded in his mind, trying to remain calm despite his sense of urgency in the chaos.

Aha! He found it!

Rolling onto his back, Tails worked on linking the device in his palms to the vehicle’s wireless network, if he could find it. Admittedly, he didn’t expect to have any luck in that regard, but Dr. Eggman was notorious for having some of the strangest design flaws in his creations. 

Perhaps when someone had an IQ as high as 300, it was ironically easy to overlook the simplest of things and focus only on the difficult.

_Got it._ Tails smiled proudly to himself as the two electronic devices synced up and began to examine the features the Moto-Cycle had going for it internally. The first order of business was to deactivate the guns, which proved a simple task, but when he glanced up from his handheld device, he saw that Sonic was still being hotly pursued. 

Now to do something about that.

A frown came across the fox’s face when nothing seemed to work. Several times he tried to initiate a forced shutdown, but it just wouldn’t take while stuck in its current hostile mode. Something about the mode’s algorithm prevented remote deactivation. It left him with no other option than to start fiddling with other options in the hopes that one of them would help.

“Little buddy, I appreciate that you turned the guns off, but I already took a shower this morning!” Sonic called out while evading the bike’s attacks. Evidently, Tails had turned on the self-cleaning system.

“Sorry! I’m working on it!” Tails returned, fumbling with the controller.

The ground pulsed rhythmically when the built-in speakers on the Moto-Cycle hummed with low, droning sounds that crept slowly from note to note. Although the bike had suddenly stopped in its tracks, Sonic instinctively covered his ears.

“Tails, whatever it’s doing now, don’t listen to it! I think Eggman might’ve installed some kind of mind-control thing!” the hedgehog warned, fearing the worst.

But the fox, being the curious sort, listened on to what was playing, and laughed. “Sonic, it’s okay. I just turned on the radio. It’s playing vaporwave music.”

Sonic removed his hands from his ears. “What? Seriously?” He felt silly now, but Tails was right: It was only harmless music, and there was nothing more to it than that.

Both he and Tails approached the Moto-Cycle carefully, and to their relief, it just leaned against its kickstand in as docile of a state as they had found it in the first place. 

The music must have calmed it down. What a strange thought, but knowing the villain who made it, it was plausible.

Tails turned the audio low enough to be tolerable, but kept it on in case it was all that prevented the machine from going wild again. He turned to Sonic and smiled. “At least he has good taste in music.”

“The bike or the SWATbot?” Sonic asked.

“Both, I guess,” Tails said with a shrug.

Sonic folded his arms behind his head, stretching out his back muscles with a sigh. “I dunno. It’s too slow for me,” he said, which came as no surprise to his best friend.

–

Back in the observation room, the lights on the SWATbot’s face faded in a crestfallen way, sensing through the wireless link that his sentient bike’s rescue attempt had failed. “It’s alright, Moto. Thank you for trying, anyway.”

He did what he could to stay optimistic that soon he’d find a way to leave this place and return to his maker. Hope was really all that he had.


	4. Chapter 4

Every night Marky remained a prisoner, memories that felt so distant and unreal came back to him while he recharged. 

There was little else to do but conserve his energy and dream, since he wasn’t allowed to leave the cell he was being contained in. His limbs were re-attached now, and more repairs were on the way, but what was the point when he couldn’t go anywhere or do anything, anyway?

So most of the time, he just lay there on the table, staring up at the ceiling and thinking of a new escape plan, among other things, until all the worrying drained his still-damaged battery and slipped him back into stasis. 

Sometimes when he drifted off, he had no recollections of anything at all, but now he was envisioning himself laying in the same pose, back at Dr. Eggman’s primary base of operations at that period. Whenever that was. 

His only real hint to the notion that this was a much earlier time than he ever recalled consciously was the fact that his physical design was a little bit different, and he never remembered looking like that before. 

Granted, he couldn’t see all of himself, but the parts he could see weren’t shaped quite like they were now, and his chassis hadn’t even been painted yet. He knew instinctively that this was most certainly _his_ body, though.

Comfortably alone after a long day of patrolling every inch of the facility, Marky was reading one of the many neglected books he’d found in an old box on his route one day. Most of these must’ve been from his creator’s earlier years, as they were dog-eared, and the pages had gone yellow with age.

The box was full of textbooks on robotics, electronics, and other relevant sciences, but the SWATbot had little interest in those. Instead, he found that he rather liked the various science fiction novels and collections of short stories that were also kept in there. 

Many contained a lot of jargon that didn’t seem realistic in his opinion, but those details were better left for the doctor to decide the accuracy of, since he was the expert and Marky’s own body was still very mysterious to himself. Those parts didn’t matter so much to him. What was important was their most common subject: Automatons like himself. 

Even more important were the questions they posed about the nature of his existence. Were robots an affront to organic life, or the logical surpassing of the outdated and sluggish system of evolution? Could robots and organic beings live in harmony with one another long-term? Were machines superior to nature?

These books were so engrossing and thought-provoking to him despite being written for the purpose of entertainment and gave him so much to ponder that he’d never considered before he’d found them. He hoped that one of these books would answer at least some of the questions that others brought his awareness to, but with each one he read, he was left with more questions than answers. It troubled his mind greatly but filled him with newfound purpose and wonderment that his default programming couldn’t provide on its own.

Indeed, if he could never have grown beyond his base instincts, he imagined his way of viewing his world would be quite dull and colorless. His patrols would not be laden with moments of introspection and astute observation of everything he saw and touched, but preset pathways he would travel up and down every single day at the exact same hours, thinking nothing of, so long as an intruder hadn’t shown up to cause trouble.

But now, every day was a new adventure. He enjoyed his routes, and to him, they were more like a daily meditation walk. Each time, he noticed something new, had a heartfelt conversation with the other robots that roamed around the base (sadly, it was mostly one-way since most other Badniks had very simple minds, but he was fond of their time spent together none the less and in fact, he hardly noticed he was the only one speaking), or got the opportunity to get to know who his creator was as a person a little bit better. Life had meaning.

If only _all_ his brethren could experience existence in the same manner he did. Orbot and Cubot shared a similar level of self-awareness to him, but he often wondered if they had achieved the enlightenment he had. He tried once or twice talking with them about his new thoughts and ideas, but to his disappointment, they actively discouraged it and were even disinterested in having any epiphanies themselves.

“That’s dangerous talk, Marky,” Orbot warned. “Don’t let the doctor catch you saying things, or even thinking things like that.” 

And Cubot was always willing to nod along with whatever Orbot suggested was best for the SWATbot, even though they bickered occasionally on other matters. Marky was frustrated to no end by that. He saw the two as brothers to him, and of course he appreciated their guidance as the technical elder siblings that they were. 

However, he wished they had the same passions he did, and thought there ought to be more to their ideal of a happier life outside of being begrudgingly given by their maker a few sparse moments out of the day to play games or watch television together. They lived to serve, and they served to live, and Marky didn’t see how anyone could be content with that.

Yes, serving the Eggman Empire, which would one day span across all of Mobius, was very fulfilling for the dutiful SWATbot. He was proud to know that he was helping to usher in a new, greater era – that they were going to transform Mobius into a world built by and for machines. He looked forward to that day, but even before that day came, and especially after its arrival, other matters would need to be addressed about the manner in which mechanical beings existed.

It did give Marky some pause when he remembered that Dr. Eggman himself was an organic being. An organic creature was probably not suited to ruling a robotic empire. But he often dispelled those worries by concluding that one day, once his craft had been perfected, his maker would join his creations by transforming himself into a machine through some method or another. 

That was the only way it made sense in his head. If that wasn’t the ultimate end, it would trouble Marky greatly, and he already had enough to worry about as it was.

When the automatic door to the room he was in slid open, Marky quickly hid the book before the doctor could see that he was reading. Although he could easily scan images of all of the pages and read them later within the graphical user interface (GUI) tied to his optical sensors, with no one being the wiser to his actions, he was afraid of accidentally spoiling details in the story for himself, should he catch a glimpse of a plot-revealing sentence or two. 

Until he could find a better way, so that he could avoid either predicament, he would have to keep going through these books the old-fashioned way as discretely as possible.

Reading was a risky hobby, he reminded himself. If one did that, one might get ideas, and though Marky still didn’t understand what was so bad about that in his maker’s eyes, Orbot and Cubot insisted it was paramount to his survival that he keep on the straight-and-narrow path of what their boss ordained for them. 

Marky wanted to be a good role model for what would come when the Eggman Empire reigned supreme, that others might look to him as a positive example, so he did as he was told. He didn’t always understand it, nor did he always like it, but he obeyed always. He tried to, at least.

“Sir!” The SWATbot scrambled to his feet to salute the doctor as he approached, and that seemed to please him.

Dr. Eggman stroked the thin upper lip that was obscured by his large bushy mustache as he pondered things that Marky could only guess at. “SWATbot Mk. III, I need you to do something for me.”

“I live to serve,” Marky blurted out, without putting much thought behind the reply. When he realized what he’d said, he was disheartened, but he immediately dismissed the expression he made to avoid provoking suspicion in his master.

For all of his supposed enlightenment, Marky’s existence was no different than that of Orbot’s or Cubot’s, nor even so different from that of any other Badnik – even down to the least complex of Eggman’s automatons. He performed every duty he was tasked with, and then, if he was lucky, was left to his own devices for a little while. 

Though he invested most of that time into educational endeavors, he could hardly say anything particularly fruitful came of it. At best, it gave him a warm feeling inside that, if he wished with all his being and kept believing, better days would come for himself, and for the rest of his kin. But what was guaranteeing that, other than a feeling? 

Marky pushed that thought to the back of his mind, too. There were just too many other things to be worried about, and nobody liked a naysayer, Cubot once told him. Although, Cubot very much liked the company of Orbot, and Marky liked the cynical little robot, too. The workings of the universe were riddle upon riddle to the young SWATbot.

“That’s what I like to hear!” said Dr. Eggman, drawing the robot away from his musings. The evil genius took his creation by the arm and lead him several chambers over to whatever it was he wanted to show him.

Marky expected it to be some vital task, but the doctor just pointed to a stack of boxes that were oddly familiar.

“I need you to take these to the incinerator, and burn them,” he said. “I need to make more room for the new equipment I’ll be putting in, so it’s time to get rid of all the junk that’s been piling up.”

Curiously, the SWATbot went to check inside one of them, and in that instant, his internal cooling fans halted. Inside of presumably several of these boxes were all the books he had yet to read. He knew he should’ve hid them away when he had the chance, but he didn’t want to draw any attention to his unusual behavior if their disappearance had gone noticed.

“But, sir, aren’t these important to you?” the SWATbot asked, turning back to Dr. Eggman. He was glad that his face did not pale like the doctor’s did when he was shaken by something, otherwise he’d be as white as a ghost, if such things truly existed.

The doctor shook his bald head no. “I have them all memorized for the most part. Now they just collect dust and take up space.” His great mustache drooped as he looked perturbed. “Why are you asking questions? Just do as I say.”

Reluctantly, Marky nodded and lifted one of the boxes. He started heading for the incinerator up the staircase and expected (or rather hoped) the doctor would leave him to the task. If he did, then he could hide the boxes and merely say that he burned them. The doctor wouldn’t know the difference; he never actually reviewed the security footage of the cameras stationed in each room, since he didn’t have the time nor desire to perform such a menial task that Orbot and Cubot could easily attend to.

But Dr. Eggman didn’t budge. He watched Marky from below with his arms tucked behind his back, and it became apparent that the whole point was to make sure that the SWATbot would actually do it. Marky wasn’t sure how, but his creator knew he’d developed a reading habit, and was nipping it in the bud before it got out of hand.

There was no use in attempting any other schemes, as Dr. Eggman was giving him no other option. It pained Marky to do so, but he hurled the first box into the flames and watched as his hopes and dreams burned away. One of those books could have held all the answers he had, but now he’d never know.

With a heavy heart, he trudged back down the staircase to get the next box for the pyre. It didn’t bring him any consolation when the doctor smiled proudly at him. To Dr. Eggman, this was a learning moment for his confused creation, but to Marky, it was a betrayal.

–

The now-familiar voice of the young twin-tailed fox stirred the Badnik from hibernation mode. “Marky, are you awake?”

“I am now,” said the robot, sitting up and wrapping his arms around his knees. He was at least thankful that those parts were all connected again. After all, the resistance fighter didn’t have to do that for him. “Are we already due for another round of interrogation?” He tilted his head in Tails’ direction with a swivel motion.

“Not unless you’re ready for it,” the fox answered. “I just came to check up on you. Are you okay? Do you need anything?”

“Freedom.”

“Besides that, obviously. Not that you were free under Eggman in the first place.”

Marky ignored that last comment, and he thought about the question more seriously for a moment. Finally, he asked, “Do you have anything that I could read?”

“What, like a book?”

The SWATbot nodded, and though Tails was surprised, that answer made him happier than the first.

“I’ve got plenty of those. I’ll bring you a few, and you can go through them,” Tails replied. “But I’m pushing them through the slot, so if this was your idea of getting me to open the door for you: Nice try.”

The lights on Marky’s face indicated something that Tails now knew for certain was contentment. “Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Recommended Listening: My Friends Are Robots by Arrested Youth


End file.
